“My tropical adventure was started by a friend, the photographer Mary Ellen Mark, who in 1988, enthused to me about Miami Beach, ‘You are made for each other!’” says Barry Lewis. “That summer I went with my family for a brief holiday, and fell in love with this exotic time warp. I met up with several photographers and by the end of the trip had a share in a fading Art Deco apartment on the beach.”
So began an ongoing love affair for Lewis, who ended up documenting South Beach for the next seven years, using Miami as a base for his US work and a venue for family winter escapes. It was, as he points out, a city on the up, just starting to revive after a couple of decades in the doldrums.